Vegetable Gardens. From today until Monday 3rd November, will be good days to sow inside: brussels sprouts, broccoli, cabbages, cauliflowers, lettuces, celery, courgettes, cucumbers, pumpkins, marrows, tomatoes, eggplants, peppers and sweetcorn; and sow outside: peas, dwarf beans, lettuces, silver beet and spinach. Be prepared to protect vulnerable plants like potatoes and courgettes from late frosts, and keep looking out for white butterflies, slugs and snails. Many weeds are flowering now and producing pollen. They can be cut for your compost or dried in the sun for use as mulch. Rainfall this week was 12.5mm, and with 34.5mm of evapotranspiration, you may need to add about 22 mm of water to your vegetables.
Waste & Pollution. There was an old practice in coal mines of taking a canary in a cage into the mine. Canaries are more sensitive to toxic gases than miners, so when the canary died, the miners had to evacuate. Our planet Earth and it’s biosphere can be likened to a mine, except there is no mechanism for humans to know when things will become too toxic and no way of escaping. Humans are an integral part of most ecosystems on Earth and all ecosystems are interconnected. Human activities are adversely affecting many of these ecosystems and we must continually seek ways of minimising or avoiding these effects.
Eco-Kiwi Pledges. Our 2025 Pledges for Waste & Pollution are:
19. Reduce micro and nano plastics from tyres entering aquatic environments, by travelling by walking, biking, busing or small vehicles.
20. Buy only what is necessary, durable, repairable, non-plastic/ synthetic, locally made, toxin free, recycled and recyclable and leave goods packaging with suppliers. Buy in bulk, as refills, and as concentrates to reduce waste and cost
Ngaa mihi /Cheers, Dave Bryce.
